On an overcast January day in Estelline, South Dakota, Jonathan Lundgren zips his quilted jacket over a fleece, pulls down a wool cap, and crunches through the snow on Blue Dasher Farm to his barn, a milking parlor that he has kitted out as a biochemical laboratory.
Lundgren is an unusual hybrid: a working farmer interested in reforming that profession, and a working scientist, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist who still does chemical analysis …. Lundgren glances out the window at the sheep huddled in his pasture and a large flock of geese, chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Then he turns to the deer spleens in front of him. For months, he’s been analyzing them for traces of insecticides called neonicotinoids.
[su_panel color=”#3A3A3A” border=”1px solid #3A3A3A” radius=”2″ text_align=”left”]For more info on Jonathan Lundgren, read the GLP article “Jonathan Lundgren says USDA is censoring him for criticizing neonicotinoids: What’s the truth?“[/su_panel]
Chemically related to nicotine, neonics, as they’re known, were developed in the 1990s as a safer alternative to more toxic, longer-lasting farm chemicals. They’re now the most widely used pesticides in the world, effective against aphids and leafhoppers and a wide range of worms, beetles, and borers.
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History tells us that such broad-spectrum pesticides may have unintended consequences, and scores of studies suggest that neonics, along with climate change and habitat destruction, are contributing to the steady decline of insects across North America and Europe. Bees, essential for crop pollination, have been especially hard hit …. Evidence is growing that compounds tailored to take out invertebrates can also harm mammals, birds, and fish.
